How one UK equity manager is avoiding 'permanent' losses in his fund in today's challenging market

Matthew Tillett, manager of the Allianz UK Opportunity fund, portfolio intentionally does not conform to the norm. In a bid to provide a balanced portfolio and avoid losses, the portfolio has the highest allocations to those stocks where he sees the lowest downside risk.

Partner insight "Every stock in the portfolio has a compelling upside case, but those where we truly see very limited downside risk are really special and therefore we want to back them with a lot of capital." This strategy has helped him achieve a volatility ratio of just 9.7% over five years, significantly lower than both the IA UK All Companies peer group average and the FTSE All Share. Tillett explains. "We always maintain a margin of safety against downside risk. Permanent losses are what really do the damage to long-term portfolio returns so we try really hard to avoid them. ...